Data privacy
Settings > Data privacy is the store-wide view of the personal details you hold: how long they are kept, the record of who agreed to what, and the tools for clearing data out of your account.
One person at a time is handled somewhere else. To answer a single customer who asks for their data or asks you to remove their details, work from that customer’s own record, which is covered in Customer data requests.
This page belongs to admins. A manager who opens it sees the settings but is told the clearing tools need the privacy permission.
Data retention
Section titled “Data retention”Retention is how long OLET keeps a record that carries personal details before clearing the personal parts out of it for you. It is the setting that stops old data piling up forever without you having to remember to do anything.
There are five windows, each in days:
- Customers (days). Customer records.
- Staff accounts (days). Staff records.
- Sent email/SMS log (days). The log of messages sent from your store.
- Webhook event log (days). The log of events sent out of your store.
- Support action log (days). The record of actions taken on your account by support.
Leave a field blank and OLET’s own default applies, and the box shows you what that default is. Fill one in only if you have a reason, such as a policy of your own that says a shorter window. Type the number of days and select Save changes.
A shorter window is not free. Once a window passes, the personal details on those records are gone and cannot be brought back, so a customer who comes in twice a year may stop being recognized. Pick the shortest window you can actually live with rather than the shortest number you can think of.
What happens when a record reaches its window
Section titled “What happens when a record reaches its window”The personal details are removed and the record stays. A customer’s name, contact details, and notes go. The sales filed against them stay, without a name attached, so your takings, your tax figures, and your day totals are unchanged.
That is the same outcome as erasing one customer by hand, and it is worth knowing before you shorten a window: your history stays complete, but the people in it stop being identifiable.
Consent audit trail
Section titled “Consent audit trail”Every time consent was granted or revoked on any customer record, this table has a row for it: the customer, what changed, and when, newest first. Load more pages further back.
It is added to and never edited, which is what makes it evidence. If a customer says they asked to be taken off your list, this is where you show that you acted on it and when.
The switches that produce these rows live on the customer’s own record. See Customer data requests.
Delete my data
Section titled “Delete my data”Two buttons here clear data out of your account. Neither one touches how your store is configured: your tax rates, outlets, registers, staff, receipt templates, and payment types all survive either.
Delete sample data removes only the demo products, categories, customers, group, price book, and promotion your account started with. It destroys nothing you made, so it is safe to run at any point once you are trading on your own catalog.
Delete all data removes every product, category, customer, customer group, brand, supplier, tag, price book, and promotion, the samples and your own alike. Quick-key layouts are emptied rather than removed. You have to type your store name to confirm it, and it cannot be undone.
Use the first when you have finished setting up. Use the second only when you genuinely want to start the catalog again, and take an export first if there is any chance you will want the old list back. See Export your products.
Both tell you what they removed when they finish, counted by type.
If it goes wrong
Section titled “If it goes wrong”- A retention field will not save. It takes a whole number of days and nothing else. Clear the box to go back to the default.
- Delete all data is refused because a register is open. Close the register at the till first, then try again. See Open and close a register.
- The confirmation button stays grayed out. Your store name has to match exactly, including capitals.
- The clearing tools are replaced by a note. You are not an admin.
- You deleted more than you meant to. It cannot be reversed. Import your catalog again from your last export.